Cleaning

[A Smug Dill]

-- but if you have hard water where you live you will really want to be using distilled water instead. And the easy way to tell?

Water hardness test strips are reasonably cheap to buy and easy to use.

[Bibliophage]

Mostly, if you're using slow river/reservoir based city water, it's less likely to have that many minerals in it. If you're using well based water, keep it away from your pens at all cost. (Northern rivers, such as the Ottawa river, or other 'faster' rivers, will tend to hold the minerals more than the slower rivers, such as the Mississippi or Brazos. Even so, the filtering and treatment removes a lot of that. I'd be more concerned about the chlorine than the minerals).

 

I mostly use tap water, but I also have distilled water, including a small bottle of it next to my sink. I use that for reconstituting ink (such as cartridges that have slowly evaporated over the years). It's one thing if I'm flushing it out, it's another if I'm going to have it sit in the pen.

 

Keep in mind - for huge cities like Houston, some sections use ground water (wells), and other sections use reservoir water (surface), so the test strips are a good idea.